Fred Savage earned acclaim for his performance as the grandson in “The Princess Bride,” winning the Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor in a Motion Picture in 1987. This led to him being cast as the leading role in the ABC sitcom “The Wonder Years,” which ran for six seasons from 1988 to 1993. During this same period, he was also cast in several feature films, including the 1988 comedy “Vice Versa” (co-starring Judge Reinhold) and 1989’s “The Wizard.” In 1990, he hosted an episode of “Saturday Night Live.”
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In 1997, Savage nabbed another leading role on NBC’s “Working,” though the sitcom was short-lived. However, it offered him an opportunity to jumpstart his television directing career, subsequently honing his craft on children’s TV projects like “Even Stevens,” “Drake and Josh,” and “That’s So Raven.” In 2007, he received a Directors Guild of America nomination for directing the pilot episode of Disney Channel’s “Wizards of Waverly Place.” He was soon after brought into the core directing and producing team of FX’s “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” playing a formative role in the series’ growth. His directing opportunities continued to expand, stepping behind the camera for a dizzying number of shows including “Modern Family,” “The Goldbergs,” and “Black-ish.” He also served as an executive producer on “Party Down.”
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As he directed for various TV shows, Savage also guest-starred in plenty as well. His most prominent roles since “Working” were in the series “Generator Rex,” “Friends from College,” and the legal comedy “The Grinder.” In 2018, he played a version of himself parodying his role in “The Princess Bride” for the PG-13 cut of “Deadpool 2” (re-titled “Once Upon a Deadpool”). In 2020, he reprised his role more directly for Jason Reitman’s quarantine project “Home Movies: The Princess Bride.”
Savage’s career has long been marred by allegations of misconduct on the sets of the original “Wonder Years” show and “The Grinder” (the former case was handled out of court, while an investigation into the latter conducted by Fox found no wrongdoing on Savage’s part). In 2022, he was fired as an executive producer of the reboot of “The Wonder Years,” following an investigation. He has not directed since, and he has only guest-starred in episodes of “The Afterparty” and “Three Women.”